Dieting could leave you looking older

[Naveed Yaseen]

Dieting might make your figure trimmer but it can also give you an older face, doctors warn. Research shows that being thin is what ages us most, with plump cheeks and soft features making us appear younger.

So strong is the link that the loss of 10lb — around a dress size — can age a woman by four years.

US researchers made the link between weight and perceived age after studying the body mass index of 200 pairs of identical female twins for two years.

Researcher Dr Bahaman Guyuron said: “A BMI higher by four points was found to result in a younger appearance of between two and four years in women over 40 years old.”

In some cases, this meant that a difference in weight of as little as 10lb added four years to a woman’s appearance, the Plastic and Reconstructive Journal reports.

Marital status was also found to affect the ageing process, with divorcees looking older than their married or single counterparts.

“The twin who is divorced appears about 1.7 years older than the twin who is not divorced,” said Dr Guyuron, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Suffering from depression also had an ageing effect.

Dr. Guyuron is now conducting a study of male twins to see if male ageing is similarly affected.

Rajiv Grover, secretary of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, said: “It’s not wrinkles and lines that make people look older, it’s changes in the shape of the face.”

Mr Grover, a consultant plastic surgeon at King Edward VII Hospital in London, said that while most people will find their cheeks start to lose their plumpness from around the age of 38, extreme dieters have the most to worry about.

“People who are trying to stay stick-thin lose weight from their face sooner than they would otherwise and this is extremely ageing. This volume loss can be compounded by yo-yo dieting, where not only do you create volume loss, but also stretching of the facial supporting ligaments due to repeated facial volume gain and loss, which causes deeper nose-to-mouth lines and jowls. The more fat that is preserved in the face, particularly the cheeks, the more you will preserve the facial proportions of youth.”

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